Economy

BENGALURU (Reuters) – Malaysia’s central bank will wait until the third quarter before raising interest rates from a record low to support an uneven economic recovery, according to a Reuters poll of economists who predicted higher rates by year-end than in a survey conducted in January.With economic growth yet to return to pre-pandemic levels and inflation within Bank Negara Malaysia’s (BNM) expectations, the central bank is likely to remain patient on rates, shunning recent hawkishness by some global peers.The Feb. 14-28 Reuters poll predicted BNM would hold its one-day repurchase rate at 1.75% until at least the end of June, with only four economists expecting a rate rise before then, in May.All 19 economists expected no rate change on Thursday.The central bank was expected to hike rates to 2.00% in the third quarter, based on the median view, with half the 18 economists polled expecting that rate. Five expect rates to reach 2.25% and four expect no change by end-September.Rates were expected to climb to 2.25% in the fourth quarter, based on the median, higher than in a January poll. Seven of 18 economists said rates would end 2022 there, three said 2.50%, another seven said 2.00% and one forecast no rise in rates.”We expect Bank Negara Malaysia to stay patient and maintain its overnight policy rate at a record low to provide continued support to the ongoing economic recovery and enable a sustainable upturn amid moderate inflation,” wrote Han Teng Chua, an economist at DBS Group (OTC:DBSDY) Research.That cautious approach echoes the stance of a few other central banks in Asia, including the Reserve Bank of India, the Philippine central bank and the Bank of Thailand, which were all expected to maintain an accommodative stance.The BNM is due to raise rates by 25 basis points in July-September next year, to 2.50%, based on a lower sample of forecasters.While headline inflation decelerated to 2.3% in January, core inflation was 1.6% as economic activity normalised amid high input costs.But some economists expect BNM’s patience won’t last long. “The build-up of domestic inflation pressures together with sustaining growth momentum and more aggressive Fed monetary policy tightening would justify an interest rate hike by Bank Negara Malaysia as early as in 2Q22,” wrote Julia Goh, senior economist at UOB. More

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) on Monday issued permits to self-driving units of General Motors (NYSE:GM) and Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Inc to allow for passenger service in autonomous vehicles with safety drivers present.CPUC said the GM unit Cruise and Alphabet’s Waymo are under Drivered Deployment permits authorized to collect fares from passengers and may offer shared rides. Prior to the announcement Cruise and Waymo had been permitted to provide passenger service only on a testing basis with no fare collection permitted.Starting Monday, Cruise is allowed to provide the “Drivered Deployment” service on some public roads in San Francisco between the hours of 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. at speeds of up to 30 miles per hour, while Waymo can offer service in parts of San Francisco and San Mateo counties at speeds of up to 65 miles per hour, CPUC said. Neither company is allowed to operate during heavy fog or heavy rain.Earlier this month, GM and Cruise petitioned U.S. regulators for permission to deploy a limited number of self-driving vehicles without human controls like steering wheels or brake pedals. More

TOKYO (Reuters) – Every March, management of Japan’s blue-chip firms meet with unions for wage talks across industries that set the tone for employees’ pay in the new fiscal year. The precedent set at the “shunto” spring wage talks also influences wages at smaller firms that supply big manufacturers. The talks have substantial implications for the world’s no.3 economy, where policymakers are desperate to kickstart domestic demand after decades of deflation.Here is an overview of the wage negotiations, and why they are particularly important this year. (For a related story, click on)WHY ARE COMPANIES UNDER PRESSURE THIS YEAR?Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has exhorted profitable firms to raise wages by 3% or more this year, thrusting wage talks into the spotlight. He has pushed to boost growth and wealth distribution since taking office in October, touting a “new capitalism” agenda. The outcome of the wage talks will give a clear sense of corporate attitudes on higher pay, which is critical to stimulate domestic demand. Policymakers want to generate a virtuous growth cycle to move inflation towards the Bank of Japan’s long-elusive 2% target.Last year major companies offered the lowest wage increases in eight years – below 2% – as the pandemic hammered profits.Bellwether Toyota Motor (NYSE:TM) Corp has accepted union pay demands, its chief executive said last week, although it and the union have not disclosed the pay rise.However, analysts said the speed with which it wrapped up the talks was notable, given the government demands for higher wages.HOW BIG WILL THIS YEAR’S INCREASE BE?Analysts expect wages to rebound slightly above 2% as profits have recovered from the COVID-19 slump, but the size of the increase may still be behind that of price hikes, in a blow to consumer purchasing power.”The focus of this year’s talks is whether Japan can revive momentum for wage hikes, which was disrupted by the pandemic,” said Hisashi Yamada, senior economist at Japan Research Institute.With labour’s share of profits at historic lows and liquidity on hand at highest levels since the 1980s, cash-rich Japanese firms have ample room to raise wages, he said.WHY DOES JAPAN HAVE ANNUAL LABOUR TALKS?The “shunto” talks began in 1956 when the postwar economy was experiencing high growth, and unions demanded improvement in wages and job conditions by resorting to tactics such as general strikes in big cities.The talks peaked in 1974 with a record 33% rise in pay. The increases fell below 3% after the bubble economy burst in the 1990s.Unionists have long since turned cooperative, rather than combative, working with management on the shared objective of job security rather than higher pay.WHY THE TRADITIONAL FOCUS ON BASE PAY?During the talks, the country’s largest trade union confederation, “Rengo”, sets a specific target for base-pay increases. That increase, which is permanent, is often accompanied by one-time bonuses, which are not. Bonuses can make up a significant portion of annual pay, and are often sharply reduced – or not paid at all – in lean years, adding to the tendency for households to hoard cash.As Japan slid into deflation around 2000, management and unionists agreed to no base-pay hikes for more than a decade through 2013. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s return to power for a second term saw him intervene heavily in the talks, ensuring modest pay hikes.Toyota was long the pace-setter of the wage talks, but in recent years its union has withheld details on base pay and focused instead on trying to rectify income gaps among workers. More

SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australian home prices extended their long ascent in February, though Sydney saw the first dip in 17 months as a rush of supply, rising mortgage rates and stretched affordability cooled the market.Figures from property consultant CoreLogic out on Tuesday showed national home prices rose 0.6% in February from January, when they increased 1.1%.Prices in the major cities edged up only 0.3%, while the regions gained 1.6% amid a pandemic-induced rush to greener pastures.”Demographic tailwinds, low inventory levels and ongoing demand for coastal or treechange housing options are continuing to support strong upwards price pressures across regional housing markets,” said CoreLogic’s research director, Tim Lawless.National prices were up 20.6% for the year, with the median home worth A$728,034. The same home in Sydney is priced at A$1.1 million ($798,600.00), a major reason the market there has been slowing.Values in Sydney actually fell 0.1% in February, while Melbourne was flat and Perth added 0.4%. Brisbane fared better with a rise of 1.8%, while Adelaide gained 1.5%.The long boom in prices has been a windfall for household wealth and consumer confidence. The Australian Bureau of Statistics estimates the value of the housing stock surged by a trillion dollars in the six months to September to reach A$9.3 trillion ($6.57 trillion).Yet regulators have become concerned by the rapid growth in housing debt and tightened some lending rules last year.Rates for fixed mortgages have also been rising along with government bond yields as the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) flagged a possible rise in interest rates later this year.The central bank holds a policy meeting on Tuesday and is expected to be patient for now amid geopolitical uncertainty and the lingering drag of the coronavirus.($1 = 1.3774 Australian dollars) More

LONDON/NEW YORK (Reuters) -The cost of raising U.S. dollar funds in the euro swaps market rose sharply on Monday after Western nations ramped up sanctions against Russia over the weekend, including blocking some Russian banks from the SWIFT international payments system. Three-month euro cross-currency swaps hit 38.25 basis points, the highest since mid-March 2020, the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, as foreign banks and companies scrambled for dollar funding. In other words, investors were willing to pay around 38.25 basis points over interbank rates to swap three-month euros into dollars. Last Friday, that three-month cost was 21 basis points and it was 8 basis points a month ago.Cross currency swaps allow investors to raise financing in a particular currency from other funding markets. For example, an institution with dollar funding needs can raise euros in euro funding markets and convert the proceeds into dollar funding obligations via an FX swap.”There are many question marks around the financial stability impact of sanctions, but it seems likely that they will temporarily make dollar funding more expensive for foreign banks,” said Antoine Bouvet, a senior rates strategist at ING. The ruble plunged nearly 30% to an all-time low versus the dollar on Monday, after Western nations on Saturday unveiled tougher sanctions including blocking some Russian banks from the SWIFT international payments system.Analysts said the move by the United States and its allies to block Russia from using $630 billion in central bank foreign currency reserves over the weekend will make dollar funding costs expensive for Western companies who were getting paid by Russian counterparties.”For Western companies, it means central banks may have to provide dollar and euro liquidity,” said Kenneth Broux, an FX strategist at Societe Generale (OTC:SCGLY) in London.According to estimates by Credit Suisse (SIX:CSGN)’s Zoltan Pozsar, Russia holds about $300 billion in short-term money market instruments: $200 billion in FX swaps and another $100 billion through public and private deposits.The stress was not limited to euro funding markets. Borrowing costs in pounds and yen also rose to their highest since March 2020.The jump in borrowing costs hurt trading volumes. A trading desk at a large U.S. bank said that overnight Treasury volumes were lower than recent averages.Trading in euro zone government bonds slowed sharply on Thursday following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, data from MarketAxess showed on Friday.Concerns about the Russia-Ukraine war have filtered to U.S. funding markets.The spread between the U.S three-month forward rate agreement and the three-month overnight index swap rate, a funding stress indicator, rose to 19.14 basis points late Monday, its widest since early July 2020On an intraday basis, the gap was 23.75 basis points hit early morning in New York, the highest since May 2020. The higher spread reflects rising interbank lending risk or dollar hoarding. Barclays (LON:BARC), in a research note, said that should funding stress worsen, the Fed has several mechanisms in place that could provide relief for short-term funding markets such as FX swap lines. The Fed maintains standing FX swap lines with a number of central banks, including the Bank of Japan, European Central Bank, Bank of England, Bank of Canada, and the Swiss National Bank. More

The move marks an important milestone in the downfall of the $15 billion Structured Alpha funds, a saga that has dogged the German insurer and asset manager for two years.But it isn’t over yet. Allianz is still bracing for the outcome of U.S. regulatory investigations by the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission.Allianz said earlier this month that it had settled with a number of investors, but didn’t provide details about who. At the time, it said that it set aside 3.7 billion euros ($4.15 billion) to deal with the lawsuits and investigations. The sum pushed Allianz into a fourth-quarter loss and resulted in a cut in pay for its chief executive and other board members.Monday’s filings in a New York court were from pension funds for various Blue Cross and Blue Shield entities and Raytheon Technologies (NYSE:RTX) Corp.The filings and Sean Gallagher, a lawyer for some of the plaintiffs with the firm Bartlit Beck, didn’t disclose financial details. “We are happy to say that we reached a settlement with Allianz, which is good for our clients,” he said.The Allianz funds used complex options strategies to generate returns but when the coronavirus pandemic sent stock markets into a tailspin in February and March 2020, they plummeted in value, in some cases by 80% or more. Investors in the funds, which were predominantly U.S. public pension funds, then sued Allianz for a total of $6 billion in damages.In their lawsuits, investors alleged Allianz had strayed from its stated investment strategy of hedging to limit potential losses.Other pension funds that invested in the funds included those for labourers in Alaska, teachers in Arkansas and subway workers in New York.Allianz declined to comment.($1 = 0.8920 euro) More

“We’re watching that vote extremely closely,” Tai said after an event at Morgan State University in Baltimore. “We obviously have an outsized interest in terms of what happens, given the earlier agreement that we secured from the company in terms of their participation in future elections.”Nearly 1,700 workers at the Tridonex auto-parts plant are scheduled to vote on Monday on their union representation after two years of campaigning by some workers to replace a union that they accused of failing to push for higher wages.Tridonex in August agreed to ensure worker rights, pay severance and back wages to dismissed employees to settle an early labor rights complaint under a labor enforcement mechanism in the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).The AFL-CIO labor organization had filed a complaint with the USTR after Tridonex workers said they were being denied the right to freely select their representation.Monday’s vote will allow workers at the plant in the northern border city of Matamoros to choose between their current union, part of the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM), and an independent group, SNITIS.Auro parts maker Cardone, based in Philadelphia, has said it will be neutral and work with the group elected by workers. More

LONDON/NEW YORK (Reuters) -Money managers are scanning roiled global markets for bargains after unprecedented Western sanctions propelled Russia into a full-blown crisis, sent oil prices soaring and put monetary policy bets in flux. The wild gyrations that have been a hallmark of markets in recent weeks continued on Monday, as the rouble lost nearly a third of its value, investors sought safety in government bonds and the dollar and major indexes in Europe and the United States pared initial sharp losses.Though few expect the volatility to quiet down anytime soon, some were looking for opportunities in stocks they believe may have grown cheap after a weeks-long selloff that has taken the S&P 500 down 8% in 2022 and shaved 7% off Europe’s STOXX 600, as they bet that strong earnings will buoy stock prices. “On a fundamental basis the world economy is in reasonable shape, earnings are strong and we are not expecting a (global) recession,” said Fahad Kamal, chief investment officer at Kleinwort Hambros. “The range of outcomes is very wide but in the long run we invest based on several metrics … Those things do not scream panic,” he said. The S&P 500 recently traded at around 19.7 times forward earnings, from around 22 times at the beginning of the year after losing more than $3 trillion in value year-to-date. Data from Refinitiv also indicates that U.S. and European companies overall are expected to increase earnings this year by about 8%. “Russia-Ukraine tension is a low earnings risk for US corporates, but an Energy price shock amidst an aggressive central bank pivot focused on inflation could further dampen sentiment/growth,” JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM) analysts said in a note.Still, others were betting that the recent geopolitical uncertainty would mitigate monetary tightening from central banks, a factor that has weighed heavily on stocks in recent weeks. BlackRock (NYSE:BLK) strategists said the Ukraine crisis “has reduced the risk of central banks slamming the brakes to contain inflation.” The strategists said they were “tactically” upgrading equities, noting they believe “market expectations of rate hikes have become excessive and have created opportunities in equities.”Markets are pricing in nearly 150 basis points of Federal Reserve tightening by next February, including a widely expected rate increase in March. However, odds of a hefty 50 basis-point hike next month are down to about 7% from 22% chance estimated 10 days ago, according to the CME Group’s (NASDAQ:CME) FedWatch tool.Analysts at UBS Global Wealth Management, meanwhile, advised clients to increase their exposure to raw materials to buffer portfolios against inflation. The conflict between Russia, one of the world’s largest commodity exporters, and Ukraine has already helped push up oil prices to their highest level since 2014, while U.S. inflation last month grew at its fastest pace in nearly four decades. King Lip, chief strategist at Baker Avenue Asset Management in San Francisco, was shifting more of client portfolios to commodities, through an Invesco ETF with diverse exposure to commodities, which generally are expected to benefit in inflationary environments. “We were buying it already because of the inflation hedge and now we just think it is going to have more tailwinds on it because you are going to have supply disruptions,” Lip said. But many remained wary. Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) recently cut forecasts for the STOXX 600 pan-European equity index and the FTSE, noting the knock-on effect on production costs and GDP to Europe, which is heavily dependent on Russia for its energy needs. They said, however, that corporate balance sheets were strong and called the conflict “largely one that raises the risk premium rather than derails the recovery.”Generali (MI:GASI) Investments equity strategist Michele Morganti predicted another 5% downside, based on previous risk premia spikes during the financial crisis of 2008 and the onset of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020.”Looking further ahead though, there’s a sense it will probably get worse before it gets better,” Morganti told clients. “Markets remain event-dependent, and we would refrain from aggressively buying current dips.” More